Fed Gov’t Committed to Rural Electrification- Fashola

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said the Federal Government is committed to providing affordable electricity to the rural people across the country.

The minister hinted this on when he visited the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel, at Government House in Uyo.

Fashola was in the state for a meeting with contractors and engineers in the power sector.

According to him, 218 containers with electrification equipment, which had been delayed for three years, would be delivered this week.

He expressed confidence that the delivery of the containers would significantly boost government’s electrification program.

In his words: “We moved our meeting here for a purpose which was to drive all our contractors and engineers to finish Ikot Ekpene, Alaoja, Calabar and Afam sub-stations and transmission lines so that they can evacuate the power from Ibom Power to the substations.

“Those four power plants have a combined capacity of over 1,800 megawatts but they are currently performing at about 600–700 megawatts because there is no evacuation capacity. So, that is what we came to do.

“Every community we go to, we also evaluate their transmission problems. Now that we are in your state, we are looking at what is going on in the zone.

“We are making progress because many of the projects that had stopped because of non-payment of contractors have started working again since president Buhari came on board,” Fashola assured.

As part of plans to transform the rural areas, the minister said that the Government had put plans in place for the take-off of the Rural Electrification Implementation program in 2017.

He explained that the programme would commence with the electrification of 37 universities located in rural areas across Nigeria.

He said, “The Rural Electrification Implementation Program of the Federal Government will take off in 2017.

“The project, which aims at deepening access to power in the rural areas, will start with 37 universities mostly located in the rural areas,” he told reporters.

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